ATHENIAN WOMEN
According to Wilford, the Greeks were the descendants of the Yavanas
of India. This writer observes that the Pandits insist that the words
_Yavana_ and _Yoni_ are derived from the same root, _Yu_, and that when
the Ionians emigrated they adopted this name to distinguish themselves
as adorers of the female, in opposition to a strong sect of male
worshippers which had been driven from the mother country.[224] Under
the constantly increasing importance of the male, however, both in
human affairs and in the god-idea, they subsequently became ashamed of
their religious title and sought to abandon it. Of the aversion felt in
Greece for this name Herodotus says:
[224] See Hargrave Jennings, _Phallicism_.
The Athenians and most of the Ionic states over the world went so far
in their dislike of the name as actually to lay it aside; and even at
the present day the greater number of them seems to me to be ashamed
of it.[225]
[225] Book i.
Whenever in early historic times a country was subjugated, the
conquerors either murdered or enslaved the men, and utilized the women
for wives, or sexual slaves. The Ionians who, according to Herodotus,
sailed from Attica, without women, took for wives native Carians whose
fathers they had slain; hence these captives made a law, which they
bound themselves by an oath to observe, and which they handed down to
their daughters after them, that “none should ever sit at meat with
her husband, or call him by his name; because the invaders slew their
fathers, their husbands, and their sons, and then forced them to become
their wives.”[226] The terms of the oaths sworn by them at the time
of the capture seem, subsequently, to have been enforced by their
imperious masters.
[226] Book i.
As these women were foreigners they were entitled to little or no
respect from their captors. However, as they were to become the mothers
of Greek citizens, they must necessarily be “protected,” or, in other
words, they must be kept in seclusion. In the time of Solon, rape
committed on a free-born woman was punishable by fine.[227]
[227] Plutarch, _Solon_.
From that stage in the history of Greek tribes, at which through
capture and appropriation of the soil by individuals women began to
lose that influence which they had exercised under matriarchal usages,
to the time of Solon, the lawgiver of Athens, when they had finally
descended to the lowest level of misery and sexual degradation, may be
observed a corresponding tendency gradually developing itself among the
people towards selfishness, usurpation of power, and the slavery of the
masses. In the age of Solon the limit of human wretchedness seems to
have been reached, and as the human race is never at a standstill, it
must at this time have either become extinct, or have begun gradually
to lift itself from the condition of disgrace and ruin into which it
had fallen.
The character of Solon, as gathered from the facts at hand regarding
him, reflects in a measure the true condition of society at that
time. Although vain and morally weak, he was in a certain sense
humane; his humanity, however, extended only to those of his own sex.
A large proportion of the women of Athens were imported foreigners,
and were therefore so degraded that they had no rights which any one,
even a lawgiver, was bound to protect. After his appointment to the
archonship, Solon’s first act was to cancel the debts against the lands
and persons of the Athenians, and to establish a law that in future no
man should accept the body of his debtor for security.[228] Many who
had been previously banished or driven out of the country for debt,
and had remained so long from their native land as to forget their
Attic dialect, were recalled as freemen, while others, who at home had
suffered slavery, were released and given their freedom.
[228] Plutarch, _Solon_.
Perhaps, however, in no position in life will a vain, morally weak
man display to better advantage the defects in his character than in
his attempts to legislate for women; and under no circumstances will
his true inwardness of purpose stand more truly revealed than in his
efforts to “regulate” the relations of the sexes. A brief notice of
Solon’s laws concerning women proves him to have been no exception to
the generally observed rule. It is recorded of him that in his extreme
solicitude lest their movements should not comport with his ideas of
female propriety and decorum, he regulated their journeyings, and laid
down rules respecting their mournings, sacrifices, and the number of
gowns which they were to take with them when they went out of town.
The provision for their journey and even the size of the basket in
which it was to be conveyed were subjects not unworthy the attention of
the great Athenian lawgiver. Women’s mode of travel by night was also
prescribed as was also their conduct at funerals and various places of
amusement. In fact all their actions were subjected to that meddlesome
espionage and control which characterize a weak and sensuous age.
Indeed, we have something more than a hint of the degraded position
occupied by women, in the fact that a man might not be allowed to sell
a daughter or a sister “unless she were taken in an act of dishonour
before marriage,” in which case her accuser might sell her person for
individual gain; and this, too, notwithstanding the fact that he, as
well as nearly every other man in Athens, was steeped in infamy.
The measure adopted by Solon for the regulation of prostitution,
and his division of women into classes for the convenience of all
conditions of men, indicate clearly the disgrace and shamelessness
which characterized the Athenians at this stage of their career, and
depict with unerring fidelity the depth of horror into which womanhood
had been dragged.
The condition of public morals during the three hundred years following
the age of Solon is plainly indicated not only in the laws but in the
mythologies of Greece and Rome. Prostitution was enjoined by religion
and when Draco, suddenly shocked by the degeneracy of his time, affixed
the penalty of death to rape, seduction, and adultery, it has been said
that by the performance of the prescribed religious rites within the
temple, the “rigour of his edicts was considerably softened.”
The restraint imposed upon the Athenians by the Draconian regulations
was, however, of short duration; for when Solon, the successor of
Draco, assumed the position of archon, he at once legally established
a sufficient number of houses of prostitution at Athens to supply the
demand, filling them with female slaves who had been taken captives
in war, or who had been otherwise provided by the munificence of the
government.
But you did well for every man, O Solon;
For they do say you were the first to see
The justice of a public-spirited measure,
The Saviour of the State.[229]
[229] Philemon. Quoted by _Athenæus_, book xiii.
By this time, so degraded had womanhood become, that the traffic in
female captives for sexual purposes was regarded as a legitimate
business, and the revenue accruing from their services was considered
a lawful source of gain to the state, its use being devoted to the
rearing of temples and to the carrying out of the various projects
connected with religious worship.
That the Athenians of this period were wholly given over to luxury and
licentiousness is shown by the fact that at their bacchanalian feasts,
the troops of women who were in attendance and who had been provided
for the occasion by the generosity of the state, performed all their
duties under direct and explicit instruction of the government “to
disobey no order of a guest”; for which wise regulations Solon received
the praise and commendation of Athenian men.
In a former portion of this work the fact has been noted that until
well into the Latter Status of barbarism all women were protected;
that among the Kaffirs, the Fiji Islanders, and various other peoples
occupying a lower stage in the order of growth, women, although
divested of their former influence, are still jealously guarded by the
gens to which they belong; and that when maidens are bereft of home and
near relatives, they are adopted into some other gens within the tribe
where they are invested with the same rights as are its own members.
Therefore when contemplating the social condition of the Athenians five
or six hundred years B.C., we are naturally led to inquire: What were
the causes which during one ethnical period had produced so marked a
change in the position of the female sex? For an answer to our question
we must recall the facts set forth in this volume relative to the
capture of wives, together with the feeling of hatred entertained by
early society for alien women.
In the time of Pericles, an age when Athens was at the height of its
prosperity, the women of the city were divided into five classes as
regarded their duties and uses. The first of these consisted of wives,
who, for the most part, were kept in seclusion and allowed to exist
solely for the purpose of propagating Greek citizens. These women were
without influence, possessing no rights or privileges beyond the will
of their “lords”; while to such an extent were they considered merely
in the light of household furniture that they were not permitted to
appear in public, nor to sit at table with their masters.
The following dialogue between Socrates and Ischomachus, a man who had
managed his household in such a manner as to be “pointed out as a model
for all Athens,” perhaps serves as a correct picture of the relations
existing between husband and wife in the Periclean age. “I should like
to know this particular from you,” said Socrates, “whether you yourself
educated your wife so as to make her what she ought to be, or whether
you received her from her parents with a knowledge of her duties?”—“And
how could I have received her so educated, Socrates, when she came
to me not fifteen years old, and had lived up to that time under the
strictest surveillance that she might see as little as possible, and
hear as little as possible, and inquire as little as possible?”
Of the five classes to which reference has been made, wives only were
native-born, and as this particular class had specific duties to
perform, severe penalties were attached to the crimes of seduction and
rape when committed upon Athenian women. The remaining four classes
were arranged according to the dignity of their associates, the highest
in rank and repute being the hetairai, the members of which comprised
the only free women in Athens. Themselves philosophers and stateswomen,
their associates among males were of the same rank or station. They
constituted a highly intellectual class, and as such were able to
control not only their own movements, but to exercise a remarkable
influence upon literature, art, and the affairs of state. Because of
the important position occupied by these women, they will be referred
to later in this work.
The next in rank were the _auletrides_, or flute-players. Many of the
most fashionable of these were slaves who had been brought to Greece
by speculators. We are informed that female musicians were a usual
accompaniment to an Athenian banquet, and that flute-playing became an
essential feature in the worship of several of their deities; hence,
the services of this particular class were in demand, not only to
heighten the enjoyment of social intercourse, but to stimulate and
encourage religious enthusiasm. At public gatherings, after the dinner
was over, and while the wine was flowing freely, these women made their
appearance in a semi-nude condition, dancing and keeping time to the
music by the graceful motion of their beautifully moulded figures.
While the enthusiasm was at its height they were sold to the highest
bidder. Fist fights, or hand-to-hand encounters for the possession of
these female flute-players, were not uncommon occurrences in the best
society in Athens.[230]
[230] _Athenæus_, book xiii.,
These scenes were performed under the sanction of religion and law;
they therefore serve to reveal the true inwardness of the Greek
character at this stage of development. It is reported that the finest
houses in Alexandria were inscribed with the names of famous Greek
_auletrides_. Of all the flute-players of Greece, Lamia is said to
have been the most successful. For fifteen or twenty years she was
the delight of the entire city of Alexandria and of King Ptolemy.
Finally, when the city was taken by Demetrius of Macedon, Lamia was
taken also. When she demanded that an immense tax be levied on the city
of Athens for her benefit, it is recorded that although the people
murmured at the amount, they nevertheless found it to their interest to
deify her and erect a temple in her honour. According to the testimony
of Plutarch, Lamia raised money on her own authority to provide an
entertainment for the king.[231]
[231] Demetrius.
The fourth class consisted of concubines, or purchased slaves who were
in the service of Athenian gentlemen (?). This appendage to the Greek
family was a member of the household of her master where she was kept
with the full knowledge of the wife, the latter occupying a position
little if any superior to that of her rival. Indeed, as the purchased
slave could be disposed of whenever the fancy or caprice of her master
so dictated, and another installed in her place, it is reasonable to
suppose that so long as she did remain, she was the object of quite as
much attention as was the wife.
The lowest class, or those who were allowed the least freedom of
action, were those known as the _dicteriades_. They were compelled to
reside at a designated place, and were forbidden to be seen upon the
streets by day. Nothing of a personal nature was allowed to interfere
with the duties which were imposed upon them by their imperious
masters. Their only duty was to obey.
By this time we are prepared to appreciate, to a certain extent, the
moral aspect of Greek society during the years intervening between the
age of Solon and that of Pericles, a period of about a century and a
half. That all women, wives and concubines, native-born and foreign,
had been dragged to the lowest depths of disgrace and shame and that
they were classified and arranged to meet the demands of those who
through the unchecked tendencies inherent in the male nature had
reached the lowest level of infamy to which it is possible for living
creatures to descend, are facts which are only too plainly shown by
those whose duty it has been to record the events connected with the
history of the Greeks.
Although under Draco, the predecessor of Solon, the political
degradation of the citizens of Greece may be said to have reached its
height, and although the uprising of the masses against the usurpation
of power by the few marks an era in the history of the Greeks, it
was not until the dawn of the Periclean age that women had gained
sufficient freedom to enable them to exercise any direct influence on
thought, or on the principles underlying human conduct.
We must bear in mind the fact that for five or six centuries the
inferiority of women had been systematically and religiously taught.
Ever since the rule of Cecrops, at which time doubtless the manner
of reckoning descent began to be changed from the female to the
male line, woman’s influence in Athens had gradually declined. The
religio-physiological doctrine that in the office of reproduction the
mother plays only an insignificant part had not only been proclaimed
by Apollo but had been sanctioned also by Athene. It is recorded of
Cecrops that “he instituted marriage and established a new religion.”
Just here may be observed the key to the gradually declining position
of the female element in the deity, and to the finally accepted dogma
that the female is inferior to the male. Through the private ownership
of land and the consequent dependency of women upon men, the way had
been paved for this assumption—an assumption which had the effect to
create in Ionian men the supreme and lofty contempt for women which is
observed throughout their literature and laws. From the age of Solon
to that of Pericles, the overwhelming degree of superiority assumed by
Athenian men over women had uprooted in the former every vestige of
restraint, at the same time that it had deprived them of the last trace
of that respect for womanhood which under earlier and more natural
conditions had been entertained.
It has been frequently remarked that women took little or no part in
the intellectual development of Greece; that during the most rapid
progress of Greek men, there was no corresponding improvement in the
position occupied by Greek women.
From what is recorded relative to Athenian women from the time of
Cecrops to that of Solon, one would scarcely expect to find them
competing with men for the prizes of life. Later, however, that a
considerable number of them did assert their independence, and that,
defying the customs and traditions by which they were bound, did prove
themselves the equals of men, may not be doubted.
There probably has never been a time since the dominion of man
began when the more sensitive and better endowed among women have
not secretly rebelled against the tyranny exercised over them, and,
throughout the ages, whenever an opportunity has been offered,
large numbers of these women, have never failed to make known their
discontent. Greek women were no exception to this rule. Their first
step toward liberty was to free themselves from the galling chain
imposed upon them by marriage, a position in which, as has been shown,
wives were simply household slaves, tools of their imperious and
degenerate masters. Greek women, in the Periclean age, simply assumed
the control of their persons and by so doing provoked the maledictions
of future ages, ages in which sensualism still reigned supreme.
For reasons which have already been explained, the foremost women
in Greece, and in fact all women who during the Periclean age were
engaged in art, literature, philosophy, and statesmanship, belonged to
the class known as the hetairai, a term which, through the excessive
growth or sensuality and superstition, subsequently became a term
of reproach. Whatever may have been the importance of the services
rendered by these women to society, such services would have been
ignored, or, if not altogether ignored, would have been reflected upon,
or appropriated by, the opposite sex.
To say that the hetairai were free is equal to saying that they
have been misunderstood, hence the calumnies which for more than
two thousand years have been heaped upon them. That the hetairai of
Greece in the Periclean age included a class of women who were the
intellectual compeers of the ablest statesmen and philosophers is a
fact which may not by those who have paid close attention to this
subject be denied. That they taught rhetoric and elocution, that they
lectured publicly and established schools of philosophy at the same
time that they wielded a powerful influence on the state and on the
drift of current thought are facts which mediæval scholasticism has not
been able to conceal.
I think one may not investigate the various schools of philosophy
which arose during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., without noting
the peculiarly altruistic principles involved in them, and this, too,
notwithstanding the fact that, hitherto, extreme selfishness or egoism
had constituted the prevailing character observed in Athenian society.
According to the principles of the Cyrenaics, the virtuous man is not
necessarily he who is in the possession of pleasure but he who is able
to proceed rightly in quest of pleasure. “Virtue is the only possible
and sane way to happiness.” The most eminent members of the Cyrenaics
were Arete the daughter of Aristippus and her son Aristippus the
younger, surnamed the mother-taught.[232] The fundamental doctrine of
the Cyrenes seems to have been that right-living or virtue constitutes
the only good. “The essence of virtue lies in self-control. Enjoyment
sought as an end is evil.”
[232] Ueberweg, _History of Philosophy_, vol. i., p. 95. We are
informed by Ueberweg that there exists an early monograph on Arete by
J. C. Eck (Leipzig, 1776).
“Virtue is capable of being taught, and when once acquired cannot be
lost. What is good is honourable, and what is bad is disgraceful.” On
examination it is found that one of the most eminent members of this
school is Hipparchia. That she is not a mere listener, imbibing the
ideas of others, is shown in the fact that she lectured publicly and
argued strongly before the philosophers of Athens. The founder of the
Cynic school of philosophy is said to have been Antisthenes, the son
of a Thracian mother. One of the sayings of this philosopher is, that
“virtue is the same in a man as in a woman.”[233]
[233] Diogenes Laërtius, _Life of Hipparchia_.
That the question of the position of women was a theme for discussion
in the age under consideration is shown in a “sophism” proposed by
Hipparchia to Theodorus. Once when she went to sup with Lysimachus, she
said to Theodorus: “What Theodorus could not be called wrong for doing,
that same thing Hipparchia ought not to be called wrong for doing.”[234]
[234] Diogenes Laërtius, _Life of Hipparchia_, iii.
When we take into consideration the fact that Hipparchia was intimately
associated with Crates, a man for whom she entertained the tenderest
affection, and when we remember that they were both engaged in teaching
a philosophy which “recognized virtue as the supreme end of life,”
the conversation at the house of Lysimachus between Hipparchia and
Theodorus, as set forth by Diogenes Laërtius will be seen to admit of a
different interpretation than that which commonly prevails.
Of the Epicureans it has been observed that they were a sort of
Pythagorean brotherhood, consisting of both men and women.
The scandalous tongue of antiquity was never more virulent than it was
in the case of Epicurus, but, as far as we can judge, the life of the
Garden joined to urbanity and refinement a simplicity which would have
done no discredit to a Stoic; indeed, the Stoic Seneca continually
refers to Epicurus not less as a model for conduct, than as a master
of sententious wisdom.
Among the most distinguished members of this school were Themistia,
to whom Cicero refers in his speech against Pisa as a “sort of female
Solon,” and Leontium, who ventured to attack Theophrastus in an essay
characterized, as we are assured, by much elegance of style.[235]
[235] Mayor, _Ancient Philosophy_, pp. 181, 182.
No school of philosophy arose in Athens with which there was not
closely connected the name of one or another of the illustrious women
of the time. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, was the pupil
of Crates, the companion of Hipparchia.
Aspasia was the “clever preceptress of Socrates,”[236] the sage who
sat for the portrait of the Stoic philosophy. According to the Stoic
philosophy, the supreme end of life is virtue, _i. e._, “a life
conformed to nature.” The degree of self-restraint taught by Socrates
is shown in the following lines:
[236] _Athenæus._
Is it not the duty of every man to consider that temperance is the
foundation of every virtue, and to establish the observance of it in
his mind before all things? For who, without it, can either learn
anything good, or sufficiently practice it? Who, that is a slave to
pleasure, is not in an ill condition both as to his body and his
mind? It appears to me, by Juno, that a free man ought to pray that
he may never meet with a slave of such a character, and that he who
is a slave to pleasure should pray to the gods that he may find
well-disposed masters; for by such means only can a man of that sort
be saved.[237]
[237] Xenophon, _Memorabilia of Socrates_.
When the ablest statesmen and the first philosophers of Greece
united in sounding the praises of Alcibiades, the genius of Aspasia
commanded equal recognition. Not only did Socrates and Pericles receive
instruction and inspiration from this gifted woman, but we are assured
that she lectured publicly and that her “acquaintances took their wives
with them to hear her discourse.”[238] Indeed “Pericles threw all
Greece into confusion on account of Aspasia, not the young one, but
that one who associated with the wise Socrates.”[239]
[238] Plutarch, _Pericles_.
[239] _Athenæus_, book xiii.
It is not to be imagined that Aspasia excelled in light and amorous
discourses. Her discourses, on the contrary, were not more brilliant
than solid. It was believed by the most intelligent Athenians, and
amongst them Socrates himself, that she composed the celebrated
funeral oration pronounced by Pericles in honour of those that were
slain in the Samian War.[240]
[240] Plutarch, _Pericles_.
It is recorded of her that many Athenians resorted to her lecture-room
on account of her skill in the art of speaking. Not only did she teach
rhetoric, philosophy, and the proper relations of the sexes, but so
renowned was she for statesmanship that Pericles is said to have
surrendered to her the government of Athens then at the height of its
glory and renown. On this subject Plutarch remarks: “Some, indeed, say
that Pericles made his court to Aspasia only on account of her wisdom
and political abilities.”
It has been said that the expedition against the Samians was merely to
gratify Aspasia. The Milesians and Samians who had been at war were
ordered to lay down their arms. When they refused to obey, Pericles, in
company with Aspasia, sailed with a fleet to Samos and abolished the
oligarchical form of government. Although he was offered large sums of
money, he “treated the Samians in the manner he had resolved on; and
having established a popular government in the island, he returned to
Athens.”[241]
[241] Plutarch, _Pericles_.
Plutarch, quoting from Æschines, says that Lysicles, who was “of a
mean, ungenerous disposition, by his intercourse with Aspasia after the
death of Pericles, became the most considerable man in Athens.”[242]
Notwithstanding the scandalous reports which have come down to us
of this woman’s character, in view of the facts which it has been
impossible for sex-prejudice to conceal, we are constrained to ask:
“What manner of woman was this who was able to control statesmen,
impart instruction to world-renowned philosophers, and leave a name
which even bigotry, envy, and malice may not efface from the history of
human events?”
[242] _Ibid._
In seeking for an explanation of the exalted character of Aspasia,
we have something more than a hint in the fact that she is reported
to have “trod in the steps of Thargelia,” a woman who by her
exceeding brilliancy had gained the sovereignty of Thessaly. Indeed,
we have found a key to the entire situation when we learn that
this Thargelia, in whose steps Aspasia trod, “was descended from
the ancient Ionians,”[243] a people who, originally worshipped the
female principle, and who still preserved the customs peculiar to the
matriarchal system, under which it will be remembered women, as aliens,
did not follow the fathers of their children to their homes. So soon
as these facts are understood, we are not in the least surprised to
learn that Aspasia discountenanced the institution of marriage as it
existed in Athens. Neither is it remarkable, when we remember that
the underlying principles involved in the philosophy which she taught
were justice and equity, that she should be found using her great
influence, as in the case of the Milesians and Samians, in substituting
democracies in the place of oligarchies; nor that, in an age when women
had come to be regarded simply as the tools and slaves of men, she
should be found teaching the dignity of womanhood to her own sex, and
the principles of equality to males.
[243] Plutarch, _Pericles_.
According to Xenophon, Aspasia’s efforts were to a great extent
directed to the duties of husbands and wives; indeed, her foremost
object seems to have been to educate Athenian women. During the
Periclean age the position of women was one of the leading topics
discussed in Athens. Socrates says to his companions that he has been
of the opinion “of a long time that the female sex are nothing inferior
to ours, excepting only in strength of body or perhaps steadiness
of judgment.”[244] The coarse picture painted by Aristophanes, of
women with beards going in male attire to the agora, “to seize the
administration of the state so as to do the state some good,”[245]
although a vulgar attempt to ridicule the female philosophers of
Athens, furnishes something more than a hint of the fact that the ideas
subsequently set forth in Plato’s _Republic_ had been openly discussed
by the philosophers of the Periclean age.
[244] Xenophon, _Banquet_.
[245] _Ecclesiazusæ._
That the word hetairai was originally employed in no mean or
compromising sense is plain, since Sappho uses it in the sense of
“female companion (ἑταίρα) of the same rank and the same interests.”
We are assured that these women were able to preserve a friendship
“free from trickery.” Of them even “Cynulcus does not venture to speak
ill.”[246] They “of all women are the only ones who have derived their
name from friendship or from that goddess who is named by the Athenians
Venus Hetæra.”[247]
[246] _Athenæus_, xiii.
[247] _Ibid._
“Accordingly, even to this day,” observes Athenæus, “free-born women
and maidens call their associates and friends their ἑταίρα; as Sappho
does where she says:
And now with tuneful voice I’ll sing
These pleasing songs to my companions.
And in another place she says:
Niobe and Latona were of old
Affectionate companions ἑταίρα to each other.”[248]
[248] _Athenæus_, xiii.
That mediæval scholasticism has not been able wholly to obscure the
greatness of the Greek hetairai is shown by the declaration of a
renowned writer of modern times who says: “Of all the poets who have
appeared on the earth Sappho was undoubtedly the greatest.”
Notwithstanding the aspersions which have been cast upon the name and
fame of the hetairai of Greece, it is doubtful if the intelligent
women of the present age who carefully examine the shreds and remnants
concerning them which have withstood the envy of mediocrity, and the
bigotry of scholasticism, will be brought to believe that the excesses
which are foreign to the female nature, and which belong to ruder
and less highly developed structures, were practised by these gifted
women. We must bear in mind that the hetairai were free, and therefore
that they were able to direct their movements according to the natural
characters developed within the female,—characters which it will be
remembered are correlated with the maternal instinct.
The licentiousness, not only of Greek and Roman women, but of those in
certain portions of Asia as well, has been the favourite theme of many
writers of past ages; more especially has the lewdness of Lydian and
Babylonian women been noted and commented upon. After referring to the
annual sale of women in Babylonia, Herodotus says that the people
have lately hit upon a very different plan to save their maidens
from violence, and prevent their being torn from them and carried to
distant cities, which is to bring up their daughters to be courtesans.
This is now done by all the poorer of the common people, who since
the conquest have been maltreated by their lords, and have had ruin
brought upon their families.[249]
[249] Book i.
It is recorded that the various classes of “kept women” in Greece were
foreigners, that they were either bought or captured from surrounding
countries. As in the case of the Lydians and Babylonians, they were
doubtless carried from their homes at a tender age after having been
reared to their profession. Many of the maidens thus taken to Greece
subsequently became philosophers, statesmen, and scholars, whereupon
they abandoned their former calling. Lysias mentions the fact that
Philyra gave up her former course when she was still quite young,
“and so did Scione, and Hippaphesis, and Theoclea, and Psamathe, and
Lagisca, and Anthea.”[250]
[250] _Athenæus_, book xiii.
As special mention is made of a woman who “did not cease to live a
prostitute when she began to learn philosophy,”[251] we may reasonably
infer that it was usual for these women to abandon the calling to which
they had been born and bred, so soon as from such teachers as Aspasia
and Hipparchia they began to imbibe principles of self-respect and
womanly independence.
[251] _Ibid._, book xiii.
From the position occupied by the hetairai it is evident that by the
philosophers of Greece, they were regarded with that respect which is
ever due to cultured womanhood; indeed, from the evidence at hand we
may believe that they were the most highly honoured citizens in Athens.
All women in Greece who prostituted themselves were forbidden to take
sacred names; yet of Nemeas, Athenæus says: “And we may wonder how it
was that the Athenians permitted a courtesan to have such a name, which
was that of a most honourable and solemn festival.”[252]
[252] _Ibid._, book xiii.
Of Glycera it is related that Harpalus issued an edict that no one
should present him with a crown, unless the donor at the same time
presented one to her. He erected a statue to her and permitted her
to dwell in the palace of Tarsus where he allowed her “to receive
adoration from the people”; he permitted her also to bear the title of
Queen, and “to be complimented with other presents which are only fit
for your own mother and your own wife.”[253]
[253] _Athenæus_, book xiii.
Timotheus, who was a general of very high repute in the Athenian army,
was the son of a courtesan; we are informed, however, that she was “a
courtesan of very excellent character.”[254] The great Themistocles is
said to have been the son of Abrotonum, a “courtesan.”
[254] _Ibid._, book xiii.
It is recorded that in response to an order issued by the people,
Praxiteles made a solid gold statue of one of the hetairai, which was
consecrated in the temple of Delphi. Certainly the deathless models of
Greek art formed by Praxiteles and Phidias are not representations of
coarse and sensualized womanhood.
That these women were a power in Athens during the Periclean age may
not, in view of the facts recorded in relation to them, be disputed. Of
them it has been said:
None but they could gather round them of an evening the choicest
spirits of the day, and elicit, in the freedom of unrestrained
intercourse, wit and wisdom, flashing fancy and burning eloquence.
What wonder that the hetairai should have filled so prominent a part
in Greek society! And how small a compensation to virtuous women to
know their rivals could not stand at the altar when sacrifice was
offered, could not give birth to a citizen.
In this acknowledgment of the exalted position occupied by the Greek
hetairai the author, like most writers upon the subject of the sexual
relations, measures virtue not by its antithesis to vice, but by the
established masculine standards which have been set up for women to
conform to. A Greek wife’s life may have been one continuous scene of
subjection to the lowest appetites of a master for whom she may have
had not the least degree of respect or affection, and who regarded her
only in the light of an instrument for his convenience and pleasure;
still such an one would doubtless be accounted as a “virtuous” woman in
contradistinction to one of the hetairai whose position enabled her to
control her own person and who was able to exercise her own will-power
in protecting it against the excesses of Greek men. It is evident that
this class of women more than any other in Greece was able to direct
its movements and manage its activities, and, therefore, if we bear
in mind the characters correlated in the female constitution with the
maternal instinct, we may be assured that among the entire population
of Athens, the lives of these women were the most pure and the least
addicted to excesses.
Aspasia, the philosopher and statesman; Hipparchia, practical professor
of Cynic philosophy and one of the most voluminous and esteemed writers
of her time; Thargelia, the Milesian, whom Xerxes employed at the
court of Thessaly, and many others scarcely less renowned, prove that
through the exercise of that personal freedom enjoyed by the hetairai,
women had at length risen to that position in which they were able to
exert a powerful influence, not only on the affairs of state, but upon
the intellectual development of the Athenians and the entire world. To
say that these women have been written about in an age in which male
power and male influence have been in the ascendency, is to say that
they have been misunderstood and their movements misinterpreted.
Because of the efforts put forth by scholastics for two thousand years
to belittle or annul the importance of the services rendered by the
hetairai, they will doubtless for some time continue to be judged not
by their intellectual vigour nor by what they accomplished, but by
the social position into which, through the exigencies of masculine
domination, they had been jostled. The fact has been observed that less
than two centuries prior to the age of Aspasia and Socrates, Solon
had given to the calling of prostitution the sanction of religion and
law; that he had purchased a sufficient number of young slaves from
surrounding countries to satisfy the demands of the men of Greece;
and that he had made the calling of these girls a source of public
revenue for which services he had received the title of “Saviour of
the State.” We would scarcely expect, therefore, to find chastity
among the prominent virtues of the Periclean age. I wish to emphasize
the fact that by the conditions of society at that time, the class
designated as hetairai, although they were in a certain sense free,
were practically prevented, no matter what may have been their natural
inclinations or aspirations, from rising to a higher plane of moral
action, and furthermore that the existing conditions were wholly
the result of the supremacy gained by the lower propensities over
the higher forces developed in human nature. Had these gifted women
accepted the position of wife, ignorance and seclusion would have been
their portion, while their sexual degradation would have been none
the less complete or perfect; indeed it would have been all the more
intolerable, for the reason that the degradation of their persons,
which in the position of hetairai was sued for as a privilege, in the
position of wife would have been claimed as a right.
By most writers upon this subject the fact seems to have been
overlooked, or, if observed, has not been acknowledged, that
licentiousness among women during a certain period of Greek life, about
which so much has been written, was governed wholly by the demands
of their masters; in fact, throughout the history of mankind since
the ascendency of the male over the female has been gained, the class
which has controlled the means of support, and within which has resided
all the power to direct the activities of women, has ever regulated
the supply of victims to be offered upon the altar of lust; and in
all these regulations may be observed such an adjustment of women’s
“duties” to the “necessities” of the male nature, that no alternative
has been left them but submission.